


Celestial Harmonies

by almostunadulteratedmiracle, toothedselkie



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Arguments, Classical Music, Crowley POV, Fauré) - Freeform, Gen, Handel, WARNING: Lots of arguing in certain scenes - Freeform, WARNING: allusion to (the celestial) war (nothing on-screen) - Freeform, WARNING: false suspicion of suicidal intent (from canon) - Freeform, WARNING: mention of memory loss (partly an incorrect suspicion of it) - Freeform, anachronistic angels and demons - Freeform, angst is seeping through the cracks in the fluff - Freeform, canon-level interaction with historical people (Beethoven - Freeform, historical settings (19-20th centuries) - Freeform, nobody is competent in Heaven - Freeform, pre-Fall angel names - Freeform, present day conclusion - Freeform, tv-canon - Freeform, “choirs” of angels (literally) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25360006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostunadulteratedmiracle/pseuds/almostunadulteratedmiracle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/toothedselkie/pseuds/toothedselkie
Summary: When Crowley referred to “celestial harmonies” with as ridiculous a tone he could manage, he had a very good reason for it. Throughout history, some pieces of music inevitably bring back memories that the demon would never admit to having: memories of ancient, (over-exaggerated) angelic renditions of these same pieces.
Kudos: 4
Collections: Good Omens Mini Bang





	1. Prelude - Terrestrial Melodies

**Author's Note:**

> We begin this story in a nondescript port and a whole lot of my thoughts about angels and demons (and mostly Crowley) and time. But we will be going places! So many times and places… that the initial idea had to turn into a future series… whoops. The idea was born and the first story was written for the Do It With Style Good Omens Mini Bang 2020. I’ve had the good luck and pleasure to work with [toothedselkie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toothedselkie/pseuds/toothedselkie), who made some absolutely incredible illustrations for the fic! (And who made me put an organ in the background just for the sake of a joke. Selkie is the best!)

## Prelude - Terrestial Melodies

Time was usually on Crowley’s side, and he liked that just fine. It was _fun_ to have an extra second or two for deploying a strategically placed banknote on a string in front of some hopelessly greedy bastard he had just spotted. It was useful to enjoy a couple of additional moments when he needed to usher the rare errant aphid out of the plant room.1 It was _special_ , in that most demons couldn’t even imagine something like this feat of occult powers.

But sometimes… time was just _blessed_ confusing.

Demons (or angels, for that matter) were not as strictly bound by its linear constraints as most earthly beings had to be. Obviously, they could remember things no other creature on Earth could have witnessed. However, sometimes they also knew some things in advance: a phrase here, a fashion trend there, or some new invention scattered in-between. These were not proper memories, though - they reminded Crowley much more of those occurrences when Hell straight up just put a piece of information in his mind, without further context or any identifiable transmission medium. 

Over the years, he had been getting better at identifying these stray morsels of unprocessed future data before he would have given himself away. At the same time, he still often thought back at speaking about “lead balloons” going down atop the wall of a long-lost Garden… even if he still had no idea what the literal meaning of such a phrase would be. He _liked_ to poke and prod at these anomalies until they started to make sense.

Of course, not everyone was like that. He didn’t know about angels anymore, but most demons were simply ignoring these occurrences, and some… well, some of them, especially the Higher Ups (or rather, Lower Downs) were supremely annoyed by it. They had always been, even before a thousand-light-year tumble out of Heaven drastically changed their perspective on their future. 

Except, of course, the Seers. Scarred as the Fall had left their unparalleled ability to glimpse the future, they still went chasing after all the irregular, time-inappropriate thoughts, seemingly unbothered by the fact that these were and meant _nothing_ , compared to what they had once been capable of. Long before free will or humans or even the Fall could have been an issue, the Seers - usually eight angels, sometimes less - could pull entire masterpieces through the loose fabric of time. They had admired the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel long before paint brushes were invented, introduced wheels on transport carts well ahead of anyone else even thinking of uttering the word “round”, and…

… why, precisely, was Crowley thinking about this? Reminiscing of elusive days in Heaven was not a very demonic thing to do. Not even when there was nothing much to do by the seaside, and not even if the whole thirteenth century was growing rapidly more boring.

Oh, right. A bunch of people were still singing to see off their families on the ship just departing, praying for them to be granted safe travels.

_“Ave Maris Stella // “Hail, star of the sea,_

_Dei Mater Alma…” // Nurturing Mother of God...”_

the words went. _Down, up, waver and slide around_ , the melody danced. _“Wait a second_ ,” Crowley’s mind followed. _“What if I put this in eighty-part harmony and substitute the intent of prayer with cluelessness and enthusiasm?”_

And that was all that he needed, to be thinking about Heaven. To be remembering when the Seers had started bringing songs from the future to the angels, who, in turn, wanted to sing all of the ones glorifying the Creator. Granted, they didn’t understand a lot of the words, but they took the vague idea of a meaning they had and ran with it anyway. 

And, long after they had first formed orchestras and now-misunderstood choirs of angels, with this particular song, they probably ran fifty stellar marathons around the Earth. Why? Only because that bugger Gabriel had spotted his name among the words of the song and wouldn’t let them rest until they ignored just how much of it they didn’t really comprehend. Obviously, they had to practice it and sing it to the rest of Heaven2 . As per Heaven’s questionable tastes3, they had to make it huge and loud and grandiose, with an unnecessary amount of harmonising parts and jubilant volume.

To be fair, Crowley liked the part where it was about a star and the sea. He liked the light-hearted impression it left, even now, when he was nothing but a poor example of a demon who listened to people singing their prayers on Earth. And back in those timeless days, before he could have had the faintest suspicion about what would become of either of them, as a young star-maker angel, he had felt happy for one of his siblings getting some recognition for all their hard work.

He glared at the ground, attempting to ignore the Earth’s crust and stare straight into the depths of Hell. These memories weren’t his favourite ones, but he could very well have them, keep them, laugh or snarl at them to his demonic heart’s delight, and Hell couldn’t do a single blessed thing about it -- as long as they didn’t know. Unlike some demons, he hadn’t let Heaven4 take all his memories when he Fell, so he was very well going to protect them from the whims of his current superiors, too. 

Somewhat contrary to his reputation as the Serpent of Eden, the dispenser of forbidden knowledge, he was very good at keeping secrets when he had to be. Besides, it wasn’t like he purposefully revisited all his greatest hits as Kyriel, “the angel with way too many questions” on a regular basis. There were just some silly songs, some fragments of melodies, and some meteor showers that struck him as familiar, throughout the ages. And he never really could leave well enough alone: he kept poking at these hints of familiarity, too, until he could identify when and where they originate. 

As the years went by, increasingly often, it turned out he was just half-remembering his earlier days on Earth. Sometimes, though… sometimes, he could tell with absolute certainty that he had put together the speck of cosmic dust aeons before, while he was watching it burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. And sometimes, although the songs themselves were full of human thought and feeling and brilliance, they took him back to long, bright days in Heaven. It wasn’t like he _missed_ being an angel - but when no one was listening, and when a song was particularly moving, he could admit, within the privacy of his own mind, that Heaven had had something going for them, once upon a time. Not enough to stay, but… just enough to never forget.

Footnotes: 

  1. Not that the plants really needed his help resisting any sort of pest anymore. Living under the iron fist of a venomous snake-demon, they had picked up a few tricks. [ ▲ ]
  2. And to a mysteriously smiling Mother, but Crowley didn’t really like to think of that these days. [ ▲ ]
  3. Or really, in this case, an over-excited Archangel’s wishes. [ ▲ ]
  4. Or gravity, or a boiling, sulphuric lake. Crowley had theories aplenty about how these things exactly went, but no inclination whatsoever to conduct further experiments and test them. [ ▲ ]




	2. Opus 1 - Joy --- Movement I/A

## Opus 1 - Joy

#### Movement I/A

_Vienna, near Theater am Kärntnertor -- the evening of 7 May 1824_

Currently, Crowley was experimenting with something new - something that was called being “fashionably late”. He had recently read the expression in a short book5 , and he was sure he could get it to stick in wide, spiralling rings of society. It was the perfect tool to precipitate an entire ocean’s worth of low-grade annoyance, possibly for centuries to come -- Crowley would make sure it _stayed_ fashionable to arrive late to any and all events. 

Anyway - it was far less embarrassing to say he was fashionably late, than to admit why he was actually missing the entire first half of the long-awaited concert Aziraphale had invited him to. He glanced down at the programme he had been fiddling with to stave off boredom. It still ruthlessly said the same thing, listing the evening’s highlights as Beethoven’s _Overture to The Consecration of the House_ , then _Kyrie, Credo_ and _Agnus Dei_ from _Missa Solemnis_ , and finally, the _Symphony_ after the break.

In the demon’s opinion, if the wretched orchestra was going to start with movements of a mass, which the Principality must have blessed well known, they all deserved to have to wait for Crowley. The last mass he had been forced to suffer through finally introduced him to all the symptoms of a hangover humans so often complained about -- no way in Heaven would he purposefully put himself through that again. Especially since it was only preceded by an annoying itch in his wings, and none of the perks of drunkenness.

As things stood, he was forced to loiter outside the theatre, safely hidden in the shadows provided by the Kärntnertor. He looked over at the tall, faint beige building from time to time, waiting for the signal from his new operative that would let him know the intermission had started. Crowley had arranged multiple clandestine payments and favours to get the Viennese police to cooperate, allowing him the occasional pick of officer for a certain posting. Tonight, he needed someone he already knew to be inside the Imperial and Royal Court Theatre -- for reasons more than one. Innovative, unusual, or even scandalous as tonight’s maestro’s newest composition was rumoured to be, Crowley still didn’t trust it was worthy of the local music-lovers’ enthusiasm and efforts. He had provided them a perfectly satisfactory alternative recently, brought the man here straight from Italy, for Austria to fall head over heels in love with him. And it had worked! There were discussions, arguments, there was furious infatuation, there were feverish speeches and all-around irritation in this great European capital -- all for Gioachino Rossini. An entire opera could have been written about it for Hell’s absolute delight -- an opera filled with bouncing notes of tiny hints of corruption. Personally, Crowley wasn’t terribly invested in all that. What he had brought was something _new_ and _interesting_ and finally not completely bloody serious all the time. And it had worked! Out with the old, in with the new!

… except for the “out with the old” part, apparently. The musical elite still managed to pull together and convince “the old” to stick around, even if it was rumoured to be slightly changed. In the wake of all this, Crowley found himself aggravated and curious in equal measure. And then Aziraphale had invited him to be there at the premiere of this newest symphony, the ninth… Of course Crowley couldn’t stay away.

And now he wouldn’t have to, any longer. The familiar puffy face of the police commissioner appeared in one of the high windows, and the small man started frantically waving at the most generous patron he had encountered throughout his entire career. He kept it up, too, until he finally spotted Crowley emerging from the darkness beneath the arch of the Carinthian Gate. 

The demon, for his part, pretended to ignore the unusual occurrence completely, even though there was sparsely anyone on the streets who could have witnessed him acknowledging it. He strode through the short distance undisturbed, and soon enough, he was inside the theatre, successfully blending into the crowd as if he had always been there. And, other than the policeman, who could have said that wasn’t the case?

“Crowley! There you are!”

… that is, except for Aziraphale.

At least the angel had had the good sense not to raise his voice too much and so drew only some fleeting, miniscule amount of attention to the two of them. 

“I had to tell everyone you were busy making last-minute arrangements for the premiere to even keep your seat!” The angel pouted. “Where have you been?”

“Hi, Aziraphale,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes behind the protective cover of his sunglasses. “I was just… around. You know?”

“No, I most definitely do not know! Half of the concert is over, Crowley! Why didn’t you come?”

“It’s called being fashionably late, angel. It’s the next big thing!”

“Oh, you… you and your changing fancies, you…”

“Oh, come on, angel, lighten up! I’m here now, aren’t I? We can listen to the new symphony and then go celebrate however it will have turned out,” Crowley suggested with a smile. It was high time to steer safely clear of the topic of him not being present for the movements of the mass. “I still have some special bottles of Italian wine that Gioachino and little old me never touched…”

“Gioachino?” Aziraphale echoed. The angel’s eyes nearly went blank, and Crowley could practically see the wheels in his mind rapidly turning. He blessed under his breath -- this was not at all the distraction he had wanted to set up. 

“ _Rossini_?!” the angel demanded, remarkably close to hissing the name for someone who didn’t habitually take on the form of a certain slithering reptile.

“H-umh… mmmaybe?”

“Oh, you… _serpent_ , you. I should have known that was you!” Aziraphale grumbled, his voice full of frustration and accusation.

“Actually, it was mostly just the people,” Crowley protested. “I… might have helped things along, with convincing Gioachino to come here and informing certain people well in advance. But the rest was all them! It barely counts as a temptation if they are so eager to take what is offered!”

“It was near mass hysteria!” Aziraphale scoffed. “For the entire time he was here!”

“We-ell, maybe… fine, yes, but can you imagine how much worse it would have been, had his company been refused permission to perform?” Crowley asked. “If I hadn’t convinced the chancellery that the Italians’ music was perfectly non-revolutionary and safe? Riots, I tell you, there would have been actual riots and police involvement, and _lots_ and _lots_ of paperwork.”

Aziraphale visibly blanched at that thought.

“Oh, I… I suppose it all worked out in the end?” he offered placatingly. “I had a long chat with the Chancellor, too, the Italians were allowed to have their frankly ridiculous concerts, and there were no riots at all. And, I am glad to say, the musical community of Vienna still has _standards_ \-- just look around, Crowley! All these nice people still wanted to hear Ludwig’s music, and the performance has been lovely so far.”

“Oh, yes, Ludwig -- how is the old chap doing?” Crowley asked, eager to take the olive branch and the subject change both.

“He has been _very_ enthusiastic about this-”

“I can imagine.”

“Oh, I do hope it will all be worth it,” Aziraphale added quietly. His brows furrowed as he spoke, and his hands started up their usual nervous fidget. “They haven’t had too terribly much time to rehearse, and external musicians had to be brought in…”

“Stop worrying, angel. Humans are good at working under pressure,” Crowley assured, hoping to steer his friend back towards enjoying the concert. “Especially these artistic types.” He leaned in closer with a conspiratorial smirk before continuing. “Besides, if something should go wrong, they can always hope for a well-timed little miracle?”

“Oh, I really shouldn’t… And, you must be right, these are all marvelously talented people, and everyone has been working hard to get this Symphony to stay in Vienna.”

“Exactly. No reason to be fretting at all. You’ll even make sure the only demon in the room will be seen and not heard.”

“Oh, shush, you wily serpent.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Stop it, my dear,” Aziraphale said, his smile completely negating any effort he might have made to sound reprimanding. “I think we should get back to our places. I would not particularly like to be -- what was it that you said? Stylishly delayed?”

“It’s fashionably late, angel,” Crowley corrected, shaking his head a little. “You could try it one day.”

“I don’t think so,” Aziraphale protested, “and definitely not this day.”

“Fine, fine… lead the way,” Crowley conceded, gesturing for the angel to go ahead. After all, out of the two of them, only Aziraphale knew exactly where they were supposed to be seated. If Crowley had to guess, he would have said it was going to be somewhere at the back of the _parterre_ . Much like the fussy, old-fashioned musical community, the angel had _standards_ , too, after all.

A few minutes of navigating their way through the crowded theatre proved him right: they could remain just far enough from the stage so that none of the parts would drown out the others, or even require a miracle to stop being so utterly deafening. However, that perspective didn’t seem to bother a lot of people: from front to back, the spacious hall was rapidly filling up with far more people than Crowley had expected to see, and even the orchestra was of exceptional size… Feverish anticipation was nearly tangible in the air all around, and the demon could be sure: the Symphony was either going to be a roaring success or a colossal failure. 

In any case, the audience’s cheering upon seeing Beethoven back on the stage was an encouraging sign. And as soon as the music started, he was very quick to give it his all, and do so quite spectacularly, with wide gestures, energetic movements in all directions, and flipping through the pages at incredible speeds…

… yet still, Crowley couldn’t quite pay attention to good old Ludwig, to the rigidly focused orchestra, or to the stunned audience, at least not for long. Mere moments after the first quiet, long-held notes reached his ears, and the strings started joining in with pairs of short, downward-leaping bits and bobs of tune, Crowley was overcome by a powerful, eerie sense of familiarity. Their timing was impeccable, the parts of the different instruments flowed seamlessly into one another, and the rest of the orchestra soon joined them in perfect synchrony. And _that_ was the moment when Crowley recognised the melody he had heard long, long, _long_ ago…

… or, well. The melody he _should have_ heard, once upon a time. What he had, in fact, heard, had been something -- badly -- approximating this coalescence of various tones and sounds weaving together with clockwork-like precision. What he had heard, well before anything ever even got a proper start, was violins unable to find common ground, bassists always coming in just a moment too late, a trumpet losing its place shortly after the first entry, clarinets growing far too wobbly in their uncertainty… 

But, to be fair, everyone, even angels, had to start somewhere. Celestial harmonies did not just sprout from nothingness -- they required bold determination, endless practise, and the stubborn willingness to keep going even when things were going to sound far from perfect. Crowley remembered the song, he knew how the Symphony was going to end -- he had known it for literal aeons. 

As the much-improved harmonies issued from the orchestra now following their deaf composer, Crowley couldn’t help but be carried away upon their figurative wings into ages long past.

Footnotes:

       
5\. That Maria Edgworth knew something. [ ▲ ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About being fashionably late: [read it here](https://www.etymonline.com/word/fashionable).
> 
> Rossini’s visit in Vienna actually was a big deal, and it gets described as [“Rossini fever”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioachino_Rossini#Vienna_and_London:_1820%E2%80%931824) \- and that’s one of the nicer words for it. Wikipedia-diving is fun!  
> And, Beethoven actually wanted to take the premiere of his 9th symphony to Berlin or London or somewhere, thinking that Vienna was now all for Italian composers. A bunch of local music enthusiasts came together to write him a very flowery letter and get him to keep the premiere there. Who knew?


	3. Opus 1 - Joy --- Movement I/B

#### Movement I/B

_Heaven -- a long, long time ago_

“Come and help us - it will be glorious!”

Kyriel flinched as he remembered the promise yelled into the Heavens and the stars by a very enthusiastic Gabriel - honestly, even the rumbling of faulty stellar engines combined with that yell sounded better than _this_ \- whatever this was, exactly.

What had Gabriel called it?

Sounding-together? But with one of those weird words the Seers proliferated. Like proliferation. Like sympathy. Like…

… symphony.

Kyriel’s feathers stood on edge as the angels gathered in the spacious hall had another go at sounding their instruments together. Though he didn’t know what result they were hoping for, he could guess with relative certainty that it was not _this_.

The rest of the star-maker group around him must have agreed: most of them had hands or wings or both, covering their ears, and a nearly uniform expression of pain and panic on their faces. Just what exactly did they get dragged into? Why did Helel have to believe Gabriel’s intriguing promise? Why did the rest of them trust Helel’s judgement so much that they came with him right away? And, by the way, if he enjoyed it so much and thought it was going to be so magnificent, why was Gabriel not here to suffer with the rest of them?6

“Stop, stop, stop!” Uriel cried out from somewhere inside the writhing mass of sound. When nobody reacted, she flew up above the crowd only to land next to Loquel, an angel Kyriel had met only briefly before, for some collaboration on colours. Currently, he seemed to be trapped in a semi-circle of strange, circular, hollow objects. He and his objects were both ignored by Uriel in favor of some metal plates lying on a table next to him, abandoned by their previous user. Kyriel allowed himself a quick sideways glance at Zebuliel. Since they were a sensible sort, and right now they still kept their ears covered, Kyriel suspected he should do the same. 

Within a few seconds, he was proven right, when Uriel grabbed the shiny metal plates and started banging them against each other with furious archangelic strength. Before they cracked and crumbled, they managed to make enough of an unbearable noise for everyone else to cease making their own unbearable noises and hang their pained gazes upon Uriel.

“We _said_ we would all start practicing from the same place,” she pointed out, her voice thin with impatience and hot with reprimand. 

An angel with fluffy, pale blond hair raised a nervously twitching hand, and in it, a long, thin stick with some strings running parallel to it. Kyriel didn’t know them personally, but right now, in that giant, chided hall, he admired their bravery -- even if all the twitching resulted in the fluffy-haired angel accidentally poking all his neighbours with the strange, stringed stick. Seeing that whole ridiculous display, Uriel sighed with enough volume and force to rival stellar winds.

“Terribly sorry,” the blond practically mumbled, “but, er, which place was that exactly?” he managed to ask, although he had to recoil a bit from the petite Archangel’s narrow-eyed glower. Soon, though, he could relax, as Uriel’s furious glare shifted to the two angels next to him, who were using the same sort of sticks and strings as blunt swords to keep prodding each other with. They took ten incredibly long seconds to notice that they had become the centre of attention and drop their sticks.

“Now that _everyone_ is paying attention,” Uriel said, “we agreed to go back to page one,” she reminded the crowd, speaking very slowly, as if she thought they wouldn’t understand otherwise. When she received no protests or questions that would have gnawed away more of her non-existent patience, she turned to head back to wherever she had emerged from. However, this finally gave her an opportunity to notice the newcomers. She froze and turned her eyes skyward, just about ready to explode again, when Michael tapped one of her wings and proceeded to whisper something to her. Whatever it was, it led to both Archangels sighing, to Uriel returning to the crowd, and Michael flying over to the newest group still standing by the wide-open double-wing door.

Before the ever so serious Archangel could have uttered so much as a greeting, the onslaught of sound started up again. She hung her head and pinched the bridge of her nose in a rare show of exasperation. Helel waved his hands to create a bubble around their group that repelled most of the noise, so that they would at least be able to speak to each other in that small circle without adding their own shouting to the auditory assault.

“Thank you,” Michael said. She looked over the assembled angels and wrinkled her forehead. “Where did you leave Gabriel?”

“One of the Seers stopped him on the way,” replied Helel.

“Oh, thank the Almighty. Maybe they will tell him what detail we’re missing. We have been at it for hours, you know, and we did get it right once - but the Seers insist that counting the notes out loud is not part of the symphony.”

“It looks like you’ve got your hands full,” Helel said sympathetically, “so why did you need us?”

“There are still additional roles to be filled,” Michael explained. “Maybe that will help?” she added hopefully. As she spoke, a tall pile of paper appeared in her hands. “Do you mind if I assign all of you to the remaining places?”

“Go ahead,” Helel agreed, “just leave something interesting for me.”

“As always,” Michael nodded with a small smile. However, the warm expression vanished from her face far faster than it had managed to settle on it before. The Archangel glared down suspiciously at Zebuliel’s short form and raised hand. “What is it?” she asked irritably.

“Exactly,” Zebuliel nodded, their small hand moving swiftly to point at an enormous contraption of metal and wood all the way at the back of the hall. “What _is_ that?”

“It’s an organ,” Michael replied.

“I thought that was a thing with… you know… lots of biology?” Zebuliel asked, increasingly confused.

“Forget about it,” Michael advised curtly.7 “It is not something we need right now.”

“Then why do we have it?” Zebuliel insisted.

“Because a _certain_ angel managed to stop time standing too close to the Seers, and they became momentarily confused in their efforts of supplying us with a list of instruments required for the symphony,” Michael explained.

“Ngk,” said Kyriel, feeling the short-tempered Archangel’s withering look on himself like a physical force. 

“Interfering with the flow of time is not a talent anyone will be using in this hall,” Michael emphasised.

“Umff-... ‘ver…” Kyriel attempted to promise, feeling ultraviolet-hot up to the tips of his feathers in embarrassment.

“What was that?”

“I believe it amounted to _of course, I would never_ ,” Helel translated helpfully. “Now, is there anything else you need to know before we can settle in and join the… whatever this is?”

“I do actually need to know about their _useful_ talents,” Michael allowed. “I know exactly what to do with _you_ ,” she said, the former smile making a brief encore appearance, “but you could help me figure out where to put the rest of them.”

Helel’s answering nod was followed by a few short minutes of questions and scrutiny of the group from both Archangels. After that, all of the freshly arrived star-makers got a thick stack from the tall pile of paper, a whole lot of strange, messy, untimely knowledge shoved into their minds, and a few instructions on which part of the seemingly disorganised congregation they should join. 

They were, once again, relieved when the generally shaky attempts to play what the star-makers now knew were musical instruments stopped. Most of them, like Kyriel, were told to join one of the four sections of the ‘choir’, currently sat all the way at the front of the irregular semicircle of angels filling the hall. Only three of them got special assignments: Zebuliel was sent to pick up a trumpet, while Daghiel and Helel were asked to find Uriel to talk about an interesting, unique thing called a solo.

They all hurried to take their appointed places, while most of the angels already present went on semi-quietly practicing on their own, causing a whole new kind of noise to fill the hall. It wasn’t really an improvement over the previous communal attempt, and the renewed flurry of movement that erupted in the hall upon further dissatisfied instructions from Uriel didn’t help matters at all. Many an angel was told to abandon their current instruments - first of all the three who had done much prodding and little violin-playing with their stringed sticks -- _bows_ , Kyriel corrected himself mentally. Two of them went to join the section to the right, casting dubious glances at their freshly picked-up oboes, and slightly wary ones at Sandalphon sitting right behind them with an absolutely unnecessarily oversized bassoon. 

The valiant blond avoided their fate. Robbed of the chance to play any instrument, he settled down a few seats away from Kyriel, and he began curiously flipping through the thick booklet of sheet music they had all received. Evidently, he must have had something against page one, or perhaps the whole beginning of the piece, because within but a handful of seconds, he was humming something from somewhere just a couple of pages from the end of it. Kyriel was still busy trying to find where that part might have been in his own score when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blond give a small, satisfied nod to himself and slowly stand up. A heartbeat later, he broke into _glorious_ song, with somewhat more volume, and far, far more enthusiasm than most of the others around them: 

_“Brüder! überm Sternenzelt // “Brothers, above the canopy of stars_

_muss ein lieber Vater, // a loving Father,_

_ein lieber Vater wohnen, // a loving Father must dwell,_

_ein lieber Vater wohnen.” // a loving Father must dwell.”_

Those were the very first words from the Symphony that Kyriel heard anyone sing without being drowned out by the background noise of the great hall. In fact, those were the very first words that Kyriel heard anyone sing _at all_. Before that moment, he had not known it was possible for angels’ words to conjure light (or stars and sky and space -- really, an entire Universe) into being without actually using any heavenly power. Yet there it was now, an intangible but impossibly real image in his head, a vision of all the stars he had seen built or helped make and set alight. More than that, in this there-but-not-there Universe, he could feel all the pride and joy and love he had seen throughout his existence in their unknowable but omnipresent Mother’s smiles. If ever he had known true elation, then it was in this moment: all his stars, along with his Creator’s love, shining in his mind, and in front of him, in the spacious hall, the angel in the short, golden robes, beneath a shimmering halo and a fluffy cloud of pale hair atop his head, singing with boundless joy --- singing of stars and jubilation and a world held in the never-ceasing benevolent embrace of the Almighty.

However, time didn’t stop,8 and everyone other than Kyriel was busy getting ready to give this whole idea of playing together another go. Even the exuberant blond angel sat down once he got to the end of the fast-moving, rhapsodic section he had found. Things were, thankfully, quieting down a bit, and the majority of the angels gathered were rapidly flipping through their booklets to get back to the beginning of the piece. 

But barely had everyone stopped shuffling around to accommodate their increased numbers, barely had Michael dissolved yet another bubble to mute dissonant sounds, barely had the last star-maker closed the large, ornate doors, when they abruptly burst open again.

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” Gabriel cried out excitedly, flying through the entrance before the doors could have rebounded on him. “Someone’s supposed to stand in the front and point!” he announced with a grin, once he came to a stop in the centre of the faulty semicircle.

A sonorous and rich sound broke the ensuing silence. It was a quick little noise, but it still had time to start out as a slightly buzzing rumble and then turn ever more nasal as it rose.

Everyone kept turning around, stretching and leaning this way and that in search of the source.

“Sorry,” Sandalphon said. He put down the contrabassoon. “I only asked, who?”

All the angels turned around again as one to look at Gabriel once more.

His grin widened further, and he raised a hand to point at himself.

He didn’t even flinch when Loquel dropped his stick on the timpani and knocked down what remained of the cymbals after Uriel’s demonstration.9

Footnotes: 

     6\. Unbeknownst to Crowley, or any of the others, the exuberant Archangel had a very good reason not to have caught up with the group he’d recruited. A Seer had waved him down halfway back, and thus inadvertently determined a lot about all of history to follow. The Seer asked, “Most holy Archangel Gabriel, aren’t you tired of flying back and forth through a ridiculously large Universe to deliver messages all the time, until you don’t actually have time to do anything else?” Gabriel had indeed been tired of being a messenger limited to a couple of times the speed of light in an immeasurable cosmos, except, he hadn’t realised it. Much less was he able to imagine an alternative. Confused by the Seer’s words, he nodded in (completely uncharacteristic) continued silence. “Great, because, you see,” the Seer went on, crackling to themselves, “I just saw these amazing things called reports, and, I’m sure you’ll love this, this big invisible structure called _bureaucracy_ …”  [ ▲ ]
     7\. It was not really an advice, and everyone, even Zebuliel knew it. Also everyone, even Zebuliel, decided to ignore the tiny disapproving scoff Helel had failed to hold back.  [ ▲ ]
     8\. Of course it did not. Kyriel was very specifically warned not to stop it during rehearsals. Even while overwhelmed with the discovery of beautiful, sincere, one could say, angelic, singing, he had enough presence of mind not to forget (or Heaven forbid, ignore) a warning from one of the Archangels.  [ ▲ ]
     9\. One should not blame Loquel for this, only the fact that inanimate objects could easily gain sentient and anachronistic properties in the vicinity of angelkind. Loquel was a perfectly nice angel who loved colours, blessing water, and the high-pitched sound of the angel Hasdiel’s voice. Loquel definitely wasn’t the sort of angel who would have looked at Gabriel declare himself conductor and then invented the sound _ba-dum-tss_. Not on purpose, anyway.  [ ▲ ]

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested, the song that Crowley overhears here is called Ave Maris Stella, which was supposedly often sung to pray for the safety of travellers. [Listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlFaO_PdYE8) to it, if you’d like. And yes, Gabriel's name does come up in it.


End file.
